Carol messaged me at 10 p.m on a Tuesday
‘I wish to quit my job, again’.
Carol is my former colleague whose smiles beam and voice jingles. A little merry soul. The sparrow of our jungle. She chirps ‘Good morning!’ into our weekly meetings and touches the aura with childlike cheerfulness.
I adored Carol. She was the first and youngest employee at our company. A talented juggler, balancing her medical study and a startup job.
‘I want to quit. I work days and nights without a single day off. I have been falling asleep on the couch.’
My heart sank, making each beat heavier. ‘I know this feeling. I have been there’, it whispered
I asked:
‘What do you think you need right now?’
‘I don’t know. I just want to get away from work and be at peace’.
Carol’s message echoed in my mind—like the sound of school drums at Vietnamese school opening ceremonies.
For years, I felt overwhelmed.
I went abroad to escape… life. I moved away from my family who lives in town. I preferred working remotely. My ideal life back then: living as a nomad on a mountain somewhere up the northwest region of Vietnam.
A few months ago, the Sunday nights witnessed me panicking. Dreading the Monday transitions, I worked during weekends. I was an achievement-obsessor battling with physical and mental distress, who took an unprecedented number of leaves in her career, feeling guilty and trapped.
‘I want to be at peace’ was the chime that kept on ringing in the temple of my heart.
This calm, quiet center I call ‘soul’ vocalizes through internal sensations that are softer than my heartbeats. Once I heard it jingling, I had already been burned out.
The achievement fever
Carol’s and my struggles are universal. Many of us have grown up in this grading school system, Instagram-distorted society, and performance-driven culture believing that we must achieve to be worthy.
Pursuing external validation appears so virtuous that we thought we could carry on all night long, until one morning—like moths rushing into flames, we find ourselves exhausted on the ground.
We first do that to satisfy our loved ones. Then, we do that to fuel our infinite black hole of insecurity. Becoming our own critics, we internalize our work as our worth, and believe that to be rewarded in life, we must not fail.
Deep in the corner of our ego, we have raised an achievement-a-holic, carrying around his/her failure-phobia, sneakily but insanely hustling for approval
Pursuing external validation appears so virtuous that we are addicted to it and thought we could carry on all night long, until one morning—like moths rushing into flames, we find ourselves exhausted on the ground.
The identity confusion
This actually has nothing to do with victories and failures themselves, but their consequences.
Carol’s terror is much less about her mistakes, but rather the painful feelings of blame, judgment, and the shame her mistakes would put her through. Deep down, Carol fears that she would become less. Less capable. Less acknowledged. Because who are we without others’ acknowledgements?
‘I no longer enjoy what I do. After that unsuccessful meeting, I no longer dare to take charge again’
My response to Carol came from the bottom of my heart—as if I was speaking to myself:
‘Your work is not your identity. Making mistakes doesn’t mean you fail’.
Each word echoed back to me, sinking into my chest the lesson I have learned the hard way.
My work is not my identity.
With or without the jobs, the titles, the roles, we remain whole. No material or meaning could define our human experience. Not a shiny Linkedin profile, the number of social media followers, or even a relationship.
I don’t think our human souls are born to be Google engineers, McKinsey consultants, or Apple sales rockstars.
I think we exist to make a difference in this world. We journey the path of knowledge and skills to offer our talents, fuel our passions and complete our missions. Our professions are means to realise the purpose we are born for.
With or without the jobs, the titles, the roles, we remain whole. No material or meaning could define our human experience. Not a shiny Linkedin profile, the number of social media followers, or even a relationship.
The self-adequacy decision
Therefore, if we shift our perception of the consequences of failures, there may be a chance we will stop pissing our pants about them.
Embracing self-adequacy is our best shot to be free from insecurity and fear of failure.
Instead of coping with our suffering self-esteem the way Elsa did—‘Be the good girl you always have to be. Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know’—and then running off to some mountains hoping to find inner peace, try seeding a belief that reassures us.
I am enough
for love, for success, for life.
I have what it takes to do this, to start now, no matter how small‘
Because, unlike Elsa’s inauguration ceremony, life is not a show, where we hold our breath in front of an audience, trying to perform, perfect, please, for their applause.
Instead of coping with our suffering self-esteem the way Elsa did—‘Be the good girl you always have to be. Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know’, try seeding a belief that reassures us.
If parents had told us, at our 1-year-old birthday: ‘You are not enough for walking. With these wobbly legs, you will fall’, we are never going to walk.
Or if they had said ‘You are going to walk tomorrow, and you must do it right’, our 1-year-old selves must have burst into tears and thrown diapers and shower wipes at their ridiculous faces.
Like how toddlers learn to walk, life is a series of trials and errors, experiments and mistakes preceding successes. Being wrong, getting stuck, screwing up does not mean we fail.
And even if we fail, so what?
Are our failures ever so destructive, so grand that we are willing to let the joy from our work and life gradually diminish in the attempt to avoid and amend them?
I don’t think so. We fail and move on. After falling face flat on the ground, crying out loud, toddlers pick themselves up and take another tiny footstep towards their parents’ awaiting arms.
Like how toddlers learn to walk, life is a series of trials and errors, experiments and mistakes preceding successes.
Being enough for starting, experimenting – and living is only one decision away.
The permission to fail—safely
If we permit ourselves to fail, we become better at preparing ourselves for it.
Because we fail anyway, like J.K. Rowling famously said ‘It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not lived at all. In which case, you’ve failed by default’.
Working in business development has taught me something which I have been passing on to Carol and other sales colleagues that ‘Being rejected is a statistic. It is not personal. We need both winning and losing information to draft better strategies’.
At other times, I need someone to remind me of that. Because I get that pain when rejections and failures slap me in the face and knock me in the stomach until I kneel on the ground.
Learning to enjoy the ache of failure is like feeling the soreness of our muscles after physical training, saying—‘That’s alright. I am in pain because I am growing’.
That is why toddlers do not climb stairs the first time they learn to walk.
We need to create our safe space to fail.
Start small. Test the minimally viable version of our work. Collect as much feedback as we can. Ignore the criticism. And most of all, embrace the pain that will come anyway.
Learning to enjoy the ache of failure is like feeling the soreness of our muscles after physical training, saying ‘That’s alright. I am in pain because I am growing’.
Celebrate the effort. Nurse the ache. Then continue our quest.
Do it afraid
The only problem with all the theories about failure is: they are theories.
In reality, when we pursue anything daring, we are never ready for it and we are frightened.
When I made my first solo business trip to South Korea to meet a university’s senior leader, I had prepared everything.
Yet, when I looked into the mirror, seeing myself in the black blazer that was swallowing my body, that reflection asked me ‘Do you think you can do this? You’ve barely just graduated. What makes you qualified to persuade such a character?”
I did persuade him. I thought that would be my confidence booster forever. Yet I am writing this article thinking:
I am not ready to start a blog, to re-explore my identity.
A 20-something who ‘failed’ dramatically at many things—who am I to write about topics like identity, insecurity, and… failure?
Sometimes, the only choice we can make is to do it afraid.
Sometimes, telling ourselves that ‘I am enough’ is… not enough to ease the fear and silence the inner critics—the only choice we can make is to do it afraid.
Go to that meeting with that nervous smile on your face. Launch that blog with your hands shaking. Speak that idea with sweat wetting your palms.
Eventually, doing it afraid is the only way I get things done. Sometimes I feel silly and exposed. After all, I feel alive.
Eventually, my goal is not about stopping being afraid. Of being wrong. Of making mistakes.
I’m trying to continue being entertained by the mistakes I make. I’m trying to reconnect with my younger self’s attitude towards life and laughing with life about my screw-ups.
I believe life doesn’t have to be a show where we are in the audience seats, but a walking practice where we, with compassion, patience, and amused tolerance—like our parents, watch ourselves toddling through life.
I hope for myself, for Carol, and for you to always be reminded to enjoy the struggles.